For purposes of interpretation of this ordinance, words used in the present tense shall include the future; words used in the singular number shall include the plural number, and the plural the singular; the word "shall" is mandatory; the word "may" is permissive; the word "lot" shall mean a "building lot" unless otherwise stated; and the word "building" shall mean a "structure."

Accessory building or use: Any building or use which is subordinate or incidental to the main building and use of a lot.

Alley: Any public right-of-way which offers a secondary means of access for properties.

Apartment: See Dwelling, multiple.

Basement: A portion of a building located partly underground but having less than half its clear floor-to-ceiling height below the average grade of the adjoining ground.

Bed and breakfast facility: Residential establishment wherein units are rented to transient guests on an overnight basis, and wherein breakfast is the only meal served to these guests. No more than five units may be available for rent at any facility.

Board: The zoning board of adjustment.

Boardinghouse: See Lodginghouse.

Buildable width: Width of the building site left after the required yards have been provided.

Building: Any structure built for the support, shelter or enclosure of persons, animals, chattels or movable property of any kind and which is considered permanently affixed to the land.

Building, alteration of: Any structural alteration causing a change or rearrangement in the supporting members (such as bearing walls, beams, columns or girders) of a building, any addition to a building, including carports, or movement of a building from one location to another.

Building, height of: The vertical distance measured from the curb level to the highest point of the roof surface, if a flat roof, to the deck line of a mansard roof, and to the mean height level between eaves and ridges for a gable, hip or gambrel roof; provided, however, where buildings are set back from the street line, the height of the building [shall] be measured from the average elevation of the finished grade along the front of the building.

Bulk limit: The maximum area which a structure may occupy on a lot.

Building setback line: An imaginary line extending the entire width of a lot which represents the minimum distance the main part of a building must be from the right-of-way line. This line is measured parallel from the right-of-way line horizontally towards the rear lot line.

Business: Includes the commercial, light industrial and heavy industrial uses and districts as herein defined.

Carport: See Garage, private.

Cellar: A portion of a building located partly underground, but having more than half its floor-to-ceiling height below the average grade of the adjoining underground.

City: The City of Newton, Mississippi.

Clinic: A building used by a group of doctors for the medical examination or treatment of persons on an outpatient or nonboarding base [basis] only.

Club: A building owned, leased or hired by nonprofit associations or purposes, the use of which is limited to bona fide members paying dues and their guests.

Commission: Planning Commission, City of Newton, Mississippi.

Commercial parking lot: Any facility or structure for parking motor vehicles charging a fee for such service.

Conforming use: Any lawful use of a building or lot which complies with the provisions of this ordinance.

Curb break: Any interruption or break in the line of a street curb in order to connect a driveway to a street, or otherwise to provide vehicular access to abutting property.

District: Zoning district.

Dwelling: A building or portion thereof designed and used exclusively for residential occupancy.

Dwelling, one-family: A detached building designed, arranged, used for or occupied exclusively by one family.

Dwelling, two-family: A building designed, arranged, used for or occupied exclusively by two families living independently of each other.

Dwelling, multiple: A building or portion thereof used or designated as a residence for three or more families as separate housekeeping units, including apartments and apartment hotels.

Easement: A grant by the property owner to the public, a corporation or persons of the use of a strip of land for specific purposes.

Family: Two or more persons, each related to the other by blood or adoption, together with such blood relatives and respective spouses who are living together in a single dwelling and maintain a common household with one head of the household.

Floor area: The square feet of floor area within the inside line of walls and including the total of all space on all floors of a building, but not including porches, garages, space in a basement or cellar not used for dwelling purposes, hallways, lobbies, stairways, foyers, elevator and ventilating shafts, storage areas, bank vaults, restrooms, attics and rooms housing mechanical equipment for heating or cooling purposes.

Garage, private: An accessory building or portion of a main building used for vehicular storage only, and having a capacity adequate to accommodate the automobiles or light trucks owned and registered in the name of the occupants of the main building. The term includes a carport, and when related to the context, shall relate to the storage of one or more vehicles.

Garage, storage: A building or portion thereof other than a private garage, used exclusively for parking or temporary storage of self-propelled vehicles.

Garage, public: A building other than a private or storage garage used for the care, repair or storage of self-propelled vehicles or where such vehicles are kept for remuneration, hire or sale. This includes premises commonly known as filling stations or service stations.

Governing authority: The mayor and board of aldermen, City of Newton, Mississippi.

Grade: The average level of the unfinished surface of the ground for buildings more than five feet from a street line. For buildings closer than five feet to a street, the grade is the sidewalk elevation at the center of the building. If there is more than one street, an average sidewalk elevation shall be used. If there is no sidewalk, a qualified engineer and/or the planning commission shall establish the sidewalk grade.

Home occupation: An occupation or profession carried on by the occupant or occupants of a dwelling unit or other structure accessory to a building unit as a secondary use which is clearly incidental to the use of the dwelling for residential purposes and does not change the character thereof. Home occupations shall include, in general, educational or personal services when performed by persons occupying the residence and provided that no article is sold or offered for sale, except such as may be produced on the premises by members of the immediate family. Clinics, doctor's offices, barbershops, dress shops, real estate offices, tearooms or tourist's homes shall not be deemed to be home occupations. Not more than 25 percent of the total floor space shall be used for home occupation purposes.

Hospital, persons: A building or group of buildings used by a group of professional medical persons for the healing arts or treatment of persons on, generally, an in-patient or boarding basis.

Hotel: A nonresidential use established for transient lodging and containing at least 15 sleeping rooms usually occupied singly. Provision for cooking in any individual room or apartment shall not exceed 25 percent of the total rooms and/or apartments.

Junkyard, open storage: An open area where waste, used or secondhand materials are bought, sold, exchanged, stored, baled, packed, disassembled or handled, including, but not limited, to scrap iron and other metals, paper, rags, rubber tires and bottles. A junkyard also includes an auto wrecking yard, but does not include uses established entirely within enclosed buildings.

Kennel: Any building, structure or open space devoted in its entirety or in part to the raising, boarding or harboring of six or more dogs or other domestic pets.

Landscaped buffer area: Landscaped areas which act as a buffering or separation area between two or more incompatible uses.

Lodginghouse, roominghouse or boardinghouse: A building other than a hotel where lodging for three or more persons is provided for compensation.

Lot of record: A lot which is a part of a subdivision, the map of which has been recorded in the office of the Chancery Clerk of Newton County, Mississippi.

Lot: A parcel of land suitable for a permitted use and complying with all necessary minimum yard, width, area and off-street parking requirements and having frontage on a private or dedicated public street.

Lot area: The area of a horizontal plane bounded by the front, side and rear lot lines of a building lot.

Lot, corner: A lot situated at the intersection of two or more streets.

Lot depth: The average horizontal distance between the front lot line and the rear lot line of a building lot.

Lot, interior: A building lot other than a corner lot.

Lot line: The boundary of a building lot.

Lot width: The width of a lot at the lot front building setback line.

Main building: The building which occupies the primary use on the lot.

Mobile home: Any coach, cabin, mobile home, house trailer, house car or other vehicle or structure intended for or capable of human dwelling or sleeping purposes, mounted upon wheels or supports, or supported and/or capable of being moved by its own power or transported by another vehicle. For the purpose of this ordinance, the removal of wheels and/or the permanent or semipermanent attachment of a foundation to said house trailer shall not change its classification.

Mobile home park: Any lot, parcel or premises, subdivided, designed, maintained, intended or used for the purpose of supplying a location or accommodation for mobile homes; or any lot, parcel or premises on which is parked, standing or located two or more mobile homes for a longer period than 24 hours; or one or more mobile homes connected to either electrical lines or water or sewer pipes; or any mobile home being utilized on the premises on which it is located. For the purpose of this ordinance any lot or premises used for the wholesale or retail sale of mobile homes shall not be included within this definition.

Motel, tourist court: A group of attached or detached nonresidential sleeping units designed primarily for transient use and located on a single tract, only 25 percent of the total rooms shall have kitchens for guests.

Nonconforming use: The use of a building or lot which does not comply with the provisions of this ordinance.

Nursery: Any portion of a building or lot used for the cultivation or the growing of shrubs, plants and/or trees.

Nursery school: A building used exclusively for the daytime care and education of preschool children, and including all accessory buildings and play areas.

Office building: A building designed for or used as offices for professional, commercial, industrial, religious, public or semipublic persons or organizations, providing no produce is sold on the premises.

Open storage: See Junkyard.

Owner: A person who owns at least 25 percent interest in the dwelling or the outstanding shares of stock in a corporation or other legal entity owning such dwelling.

Owner occupied: The majority of nights are spent at such dwelling by the owner.

Parking space: A surfaced area, enclosed or unenclosed, sufficient in size as to permit storage of one standard size automobile and connected to a public street or alley by a driveway so arranged to permit ingress and egress without moving other automobiles adjacent to the parking space.

Premises: Land together with the structure or structures occupying it.

Public building: A building owned or used exclusively by the city, county, state or federal governments.

Roofline: The edge of the facia beam or eave of a building.

Semipublic building: Any building whose primary purpose is for religious, educational or institutional usage.

Setback line: The distance as measured perpendicularly from either the front, side or rear property line to the building.

Sign, outdoor advertising: Means of identification, description, display or illustration affixed onto some other structure of its own or onto some other structure and advertising an object, produce, place, activity, institution or business.

Special exception: An identified use, which is compatible with the other identified uses to which property in a given zone may be committed which may be permitted in the discretion of the building inspector or, on appeal by the zoning board of adjustment, provided that the building inspector or board is formally presented with proof in support of the request for permission to employ such use before such use may be authorized. Special exceptions are nontransferable.

Story: That portion of a building between the surface of a floor and the ceiling immediately above.

Street: A public or private right-of-way which affords a primary means of access to lots.

Street line: Public or private right-of-way line of a street.

Structure: Any type construction which requires a permanent location.

Temporary permits: The city may issue temporary permits for shortterm activities such as construction huts, tents and related items.

Tourist home: A building designed for or used by a single-family dwelling in which sleeping rooms are provided or offered to transient guests for compensation, but for not more than four transient guests.

Unit: A bedroom for rent, regardless of whether or not it is included in a suite.

Unobstructed open space: An area of land required to be maintained as specified in Section 401, Building Regulations herein, upon which no structure may be erected, except those accessory structures used in connection with the movement or regulation of traffic.

Variance: A modification of or deviation from the literal provisions or requirements of this ordinance by the zoning board of adjustment in cases where a literal enforcement of its provisions would result in unnecessary hardship due to circumstances unique to the property for which the variance is granted. A variance deals with lot area, width and coverage, height limits, setback lines, off-street parking requirements and the like, and does not deal with uses of property permitted in a particular zone.

Yard: Open space on a building lot unobstructed by any portion of a structure from the ground upward, except as otherwise provided. In determining yard widths and depths, the minimum horizontal distance between the building and the respective property line shall be used.

Yard, front: That area of a yard which extends along the entire length of the front lot line, within the two side lot lines and the minimum horizontal distance between the street line and the front setback line of the building.

Yard, rear: That area of a yard which extends along the entire length of the rear lot line within the two side lot lines and the minimum horizontal distance between the rear lot line and the building, excluding unenclosed porches, balconies and projected steps.

Yard, side: That area of a yard which extends along the entire side lot lines between the front and rear lot lines and the side setback line of the building.

Zoning permit: A permit issued by the City of Newton certifying that the building, structure, use or lot for which said permit was applied, complies with the provisions and regulations of this zoning ordinance.

(Ord. No. A-79, § 1, 11-1-1977; Ord. No. A-130, 11-7-1995)